Appledashery

by Just Essay

==Part Twenty-Three: Loyal to the End==

It was early morning.

Rainbow Dash's mane still smelled of train steam. Her ears rang with the howl of an engine's whistle.

Nevertheless, with instinctive motions, she opened the front door to her cloud home and limped her way into the foyer.

She was greeted by shadows. Every dark color was the same. Every empty space mimicked the other.

She breathed in... and breathed out.

She made no move to place her luggage down because the mare hadn't brought any luggage with her on the "vacation" to begin with. All in all, she found herself standing in the dead center of the foyer for nothing.

If not for just the familiarity of the dull lurch.

Rainbow sighed. She closed her eyes and swayed on numb limbs. She had been without her medicine for so long that she felt almost like a torso drifting in the breeze.

She needed to wake up... both inside and out.

The shower beckoned. Her muzzle twitched. Rainbow wasn't smiling, but it was the closest thing she could afford.

On thudding fetlocks, she stumbled forward...

...when the first morning light caught the glint of a varnished rectangle of wood directly outside her front house window.

"...?" The mare spun about. With strong wings, she threw herself at the door, opened it, and looked at the cloudbed extending from her front stoop. Her muzzle dropped as she caught a better look at the sign that had been stamped into her levitating property.

It was a bright white sign, owned by a local pegasus realtor.

Two bold red words burned into Rainbow Dash's retinae: "FOR SALE"

Rainbow's feathertips wilted as her ears drooped.

"Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Luna poop..."

---

Part Twenty-Three: Loyal To the End
(When Even Her Last Leg Is Gone, All Rainbow Has Is Her Heart)

---

Comments

[RoboRed]

Two bold red words burned into Rainbow Dash's retinae: "FOR SALE"

FUCK

[Elsaack]

And the Realtor didn't change the locks when he showed up to repossess the house? Shame on him.

[Sabin]

7256353 well, it's not like we didn't see this coming

[RoboRed]

7256366
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell, it was always a distinct possibility, but not enough the remain in active thought.

[MidnightReflection]

Yup, back to the depression. But if Rainbow is going to be without a home...

SHE CAN STAY OVER AT APPLEJACK'S!
...right? Is that what we're about to read?

[Keradon]

Reading the parenthesis'd subtitle puts this song in my head:

"When everything is wrong, we move along."

[Lightning Bearer]

I wonder how much longer Rainbow can keep her situation(s) from her friends.

[CommanderCuddle]

the appledash at the end of all this better be worth it and more then like one sentence of them hugging

[Phoenix Kitten]

7256381 I think her bunking with Shy is more likely.
And more in character.

[MidnightReflection]

7256597 Possibly, but don't forget that Flutters probably has Big Mac around quite a bit now.

[Sam the Anti-Ninja]

Ah, the joys of coming back from an awesome vacation only to remember how much life sucks. Silver lining: It means we finally get to resolve the whole housing/looming debt situation in this arc. One more thing will be dealt with. Progress is coming. Painful, cuddle-free progress. Also, an apology for Epcot. Because that's still a thing that needs to happen.

[Phoenix Kitten]

7256637 during the day, perhaps, but I doubt they'd have reached the living together stage.
I doubt they'd get to that point personally, since Big Mac does have to get up early to work on the farm I'd imagine.

[Fishberry]

The thing about characters, my friends, is that they evolve and change.

This Rainbow Dash's experiences are different from the experiences of the Rainbow Dash in the show. Who's to say that this Rainbow Dash isn't in character in this story?

Different experiences make different individuals. I'm sure if any of us were to make a different decision five years ago that set us on a completely different path, we would not be the same as we are today.

[DrEggnog]

Sounds like Rainbow needs to spend some quality time with the yellow apron.

[Phoenix Kitten]

7256791 What Yellow Apron? Fancy Pants got them to change the uniform after the mountain buffalo incident.

[56]

At this point I put this story in about the same category as Half-Life... I have no idea if it's ever going to resolve in a satisfying way, and I'm simultaneously heavily invested in it and completely disinterested.

[DrEggnog]

7256798
Oh, right. It's hard to keep up with those dense Appledash mythos.

[Salad king]

7256381 and then stu proceeds to walk in every time aj and rd are talking and everyone gets mad.

[Codaulux]

Guys, the place is for sale, not "For Lease" as was the case 900 chapters ago. Dash needn't worry unless the new prospective buyer decides not to rent it out and moves in themselves.

[Sabin]

7256791
7256798

Except that there's a high possibility that she's fired from that job for not showing up to work and not telling them she'd be absent....again.

[Shotgunmerc]

Discord/Noir buys the house
Discord/Noir create/give her a new house

Her friends still don't find out how bad her life is and she isn't homeless

Calling it

[Hestia]

Lemme guess, this is the arc where it all hits the fan. Well, I'm off to gather the tissues and popcorn.

[Sharp Quill]

==Part Twenty-Three: Loyal to the End==

Loyal to the End
to the End
the End

oh boy...

[Phoenix Kitten]

7256974
Again, pointing out he let her stay on after a week rescuing the deer, a week in manehatten, the time spent in dredgemane, and the week or so she spent in the dragon lands.
The fillyda trip is probably the only one she had to say "hey, I'm helping a friend with something, I'll be gone for about a week."

Her boss knew setting her up with Noir would set her on some long jobs, and as far as he knows, that hasn't stopped, her unexplained absences are probably just par for the course.
He knows, dealing with Noir is a need to know basis kinda job.

[Sabin]

7257421 True, but she didn't show up for work when she went AWOL after the cyclone incident and got a lecture in his office because of it. He wasn't even finished saying his piece before Rainbow blew him off.

He did set her up with Noir, so you could say that the two have some form of communication and Noir could say that he has Rainbow working on something and could be out for a while. Does that happen? I don't know, more than likely it doesn't. It certainly didn't occur after the cyclone (or Noir told her boss that she's not on one of his assignments).

[Phoenix Kitten]

7257485
Fair enough, but hopefully this time her drinking buddies will stick up for her since they did essentially kidnap her.
So any work she's missed this week is their fault.

...Though whether or not the explanation "I got so drunk my friends staged an intervention that involved kidnapping me and dragging me to Las Pegasus" is going to let her keep her job is another thing. I'm pretty sure that sentence would be enough to get someone fired on the spot.

[I Thought I Was Toast]

So... What are the chances that being kidnapped for a vacation are gonna cut it here? It's not like she could pay the rent out in the desert... Then again, as a responsible adult she should have flown back to pay it in the first place...

[Autumn Rush]

Aaaand another potential problem we've been shown since the beginning of the story comes back to rear its ugly head and needs to be resolved. Last arc was Listing Breeze, and we've long since gotten done with the shards for Discord/Lancie.

Other than Rainbow's atrophy, anything else we're missing?

In the meantime, yay for more agony and depression.

[Aatxe360]

7256637

And Applejack has Stu around.

[BabySkittleMonster]

Well. That's not good. At all. Does she have the funds to buy the house? Or is this the kick she needs to (finally) ask her friends for help?

I don't know if it's universal, but I and all my friends would happily share a house if one of us were rendered homeless. I'm hoping it's the same here, despite all the secret-keeping.

[Jern]

Screw the house, did they just repo Epcot!?!

[zaponator]

Oh this gon' be fun.

[Thursday]

She's gonna have to move in with Applejack and Stu I bet......

[arancaytar]

WELL THEN

[bronyheat]

Well that's one way to knock Rainbow back down... Couldn't even go a few chapters...
Guess it's time to do some work for Noir, I'm sure he pays well.